Softs

I got up at 0615 and went to the gym. After an hour and a half on the exercise bike it was time to unload the food trucks, first the frozen food and then the fresh stuff. To everyone’s surprise, there were again soft drinks in the delivery! The support branch should really make up their minds about the matter. After the unloading I did some stretching on the sundeck. It was hot but I didn't care. I had hoped to schedule some meetings for today, but the first of Ramadan was a holiday. Tomorrow is going to be a holiday too (Friday) and according to our interpreter, there is a law in Afghanistan that says that any day that falls between two holidays is also a holiday. I was not in the least surprised, nor disappointed. We had to arrange a patrol in the afternoon anyway to bring the electrician back to CNL. As the opportunity presented itself, the patrol also got the task to stop by at camp Marmul to try to find a new internet hub. Unfortunately the patrol ran into some technical problems on the way and had to return to Marmul for repairs.

The guys wanted to buy some wine and beer for the mess association from Marmul, so I wrote them a certificate for the purchase. We haven't had any alcohol at the PO under my command. I don't know why, really, because it hasn't been forbidden in any way. I just haven't encouraged it or taken any steps to bring alcohol the safe house. And no-one has actually asked for beer or wine to be brought in - until now, that is. Perhaps they have realised that I'm not going to be here for that long (today I actually started packing some of my winter equipment). MOT D came in from their three day patrol. After the barbecue on the sundeck we tried to fly a kite that had landed in our yard. The wind was strong enough because many of our neighbours' kids were flying their kites, but we didn't have the skills to make ours fly. Our signals guys finally got tired of not having any internet available after three days, so they decided to connect the duty internet to the welfare router for a few hours, which was quite enough for me to read my email and update the blog. Soon we'll have electricity, internet and beer available at the same time - who cares about kites!